Erusalem Becos a Battleground As Extremists Carry Attacks Intsixth Day

July 23, 1947

Jerusalem (Jul. 22)

Jerusalem was today a battleground from early (##)orning until late tonight as attacks on British military and police installations (##)ontinued into the sixth day. Three times military sirens wailed and traffic was (##)alted as reinforcements raced to relieve police and soldiers in a target area.

At one time three different actions were taking place in scattered parts of the city. The Mustashpha police station was brought under gunfire from surrounding (##)roofs, while a Molotov cocktail was hurled at another police station, and two R.A.F. vehicles were the target of incendiary bombs. About the same time police discovered and detonated two mines on a road on the outskirts of the city.

Earlier, alarms sounded after three persons threw grenades at a passing vehicle which was once owned by the army but is now operated by a civilian. A military jeep was fired on by two youths in Rehavia. One soldier was wounded, as was a passing Jew. Another vehicle escaped injury when an incendiary hand grenade missed it (##)in Zion Square, in the center of the city. Two other persons, one an Arab and the (##)other a Jewish taxi driver, were fired upon. A government communique listed six Jews as having been wounded during the incidents.

Hundreds of persons were trapped in corssfire during the day and were forced to seek shelter until the firing ended, well after the curfew hour. They had considerable difficulty explaining their presence in the streets to troops who later enforced the curfew regulations. Three stores were set on fire by bullets fired by troops and extremists.

EIGHT KILLED, 49 WOUNDED IN 37 INCIDENTS DURING WEEK

A government announcement early today revealed that there had been 37 distinct incidents throughout the country during the past week. The casualty toll amounted to eight killed, 16 wounded seriously, and 33 injured slightly.

In the Mount Carmel quarter of Haifa, a British soldier was injured when a truck was blown up by an electrically detonated bomb.

About midnight two breaks were discovered in the Iraq Petroleum Company’s pipeline south of Nazareth. A quantity of oil was lost. It was officially announced that eight Jews detained yesterday after the blasting of a pipeline east of Haifa, at Kfar Yehoshua, have been released.

Two diamond robberies occurred in Tel Aviv within an hour. More than $3,000 worth of Jewels were taken, and in both cases the holdup men escaped.

In Nathanya, the military authorities completed arrangements to close down all shops in the city and use troops to distribute foodstuffs. Mayor Oved Ben Ami called on Brig. Sir Humphrey Gale, commander of “Operation Tiger,” to protest the contemplated action and to warn that the Jews would refuse to accept food distributed by the British. He declared that all the inhabitants of the Nathanya area might go on a hunger strike.

A military spokesman revealed that 21 persons have been detained for further questioning. Admitting that nothing incriminating has been found during the house-to-house searches thus far, he added that the city and its satellite settlements would remain under military control until the two British sergeants kidnapped there about ten days ago are found.

It is understood that an urgent meeting of representatives of all local councils, the Jewish National Council and the Jewish Agency has been called for tomorrow to discuss the rapidly deteriorating situation in the country.